I do what I can do and I have concluded that my efforts are completely ineffectual.

I email my congressman, Hoyer, continuously about how I feel about his ineffectual performance. It stinks! I have requested responses over the last couple of years and have never received one. I am viewed, I am sure, as a gnat, trying to just be annoying. Best to ignore him, his staff must say.

I email Senator Mikulski, especially relative to her support for the condemnation of moveon and Petraeus. And then her support for Kyl-Lieberman. Sometimes I get a form-letter response.

I stopped using Verizon because they wouldn't accept NARAL as a customer and also AT&T because of their censorship of Pearl Jam.

I write to all the editors of the NY Times about the bias towards the administration in the writings of Bumiller, Gordon, and Healy.

I continuously write Brooks and Friedman asking them to discuss their support of the Iraq war during 2002 and to defend it. Never a response.

I stopped protesting after getting stomped on by the DC police in 2002. And I am a coward.

I contribute generously to Obama, moveon, Amnesty International and the ACLU. I would contribute to others if I could hope that they would make a difference.

I am acutely aware of the national data bases for dissenters and am repeatedly being threatened. Many people have called the FBI and CIA to report me as a possible terrorist because I talk about dissenting with the policies of this administration.

Unless something changes radically in the USA we are all screwed except for the neocons and the wealthy and the corporations.

"But most of all, like a huge ship that has been steaming steadily in one direction, given the nature of our political process and reality, the problems that have beset our country, simply do not lend themselves to a quick turnaround, and to have expected serious improvements by now was, at best, a very long and unrealistic shot, and the fact that this hasn't happened should not cause people to lose hope and give up. I'm not guaranteeing that things WILL improve as much as we'd like them to, of course. What I'm saying is that if they can improve--and I personally believe that they can--it won't happen overnight, but rather take months, years and likely decades."

I was stunned by the way the Bush administration changed the U.S.A.'s traditional ways of doing things such as saying we would only attack if we were attacked. I recall that our country's policy was that it wouldn't undertake any action that wasn't just and fair. It changed overnight (it seemed to me) to preemptive war so we could intimidate the whole world. "Carry a big stick and use the hell out of it." I always remember Krauthammer around "Mission Accomplished" time saying the U.S.A. finally got its foreign policy right. If you don't do what we say we'll hammer the shit out of you.

The U.S.A. always challenged countries that were perceived as violating human rights, then overnight (it seemed to me) we instituted torture. John Yoo and Fredo and Addington and Bybee and Flanigan. I felt, once the American populace (the average Joe) found about about these "crazy" enactments, they would be horrified. No they are only horrified by some action of Nicole or Britney.

The U.S.A. prided itself on its Bill of Rights, habeas corpus, Miranda, et al. Then overnight (it seemed to me) my rights were gone. As I said I was stomped on by the DC Police. I was walking behind some people who were carrying a poster equating Bush to Hitler and the police came down on them, knocking me over. The Main Steam Media was there and watched and reported nothing.

I not a "quick study," but the above illustrate only a few events of a long list that happened overnight (or so it seemed to me).

But now you say we can't stop nor change the course of this huge ship doing 80 knots and out-of-control.

How come the neocons could change course by issuing a command, "hard right rudder," and have the changes occur

almost immediately. (or so it seemed to me)

I am aware that the neocons have been planning an overthrow of the existing situation (influence of liberalism) for some time, including control of the government and the media as you summarized. I recall Lewis Lapham writing in Harpers that Irving Kristol, Bill's father, was offering journalists and columnists in the 1980's money to present the neoconservative point of view. Lewis did not take the offer which was considerable. Irving Kristol once remarked that a neoconservative is a "liberal mugged by reality," one who became more conservative after seeing the results of liberal policies.

Amazing how the sons of those prominent neocons of the eighties are the main protagonists of the movement today. I think of Podhoretz and Kagan. So your point is well taken.

They have been around a long time and were known within the "Beltway Village" as the "crazies."

OK, so they spent years and years preparing the plan. That doesn't take away from the fact that they implemented it overnight.

Or so it seemed.

And it seems to me that they are still winning. If their goal is to protect Israel, it's working. They have nothing to lose and if the U.S.A. attacks Iran, then all the better for Israel. It took many years of planning, I agree. But it was an almost flawless implementation with the desired results.

They expect the nation, and I think correctly, to be as Britney declared. "The President was voted in so we have to trust him and do what he says."